Buffer Overrun...

EricP
EricP
edited September 2015 in SecuritySpy
Multiple times per day, I'm getting a message like, "Error recording audio for the camera "Camera 02" 3.4.7,900,841 Buffer overrun - computer is overloaded". In some cases, the message comes through for all 18 cameras. In other cases, it may only come through on 4 or 5 of them. The message doesn't always come back with the cameras in the exact same order, though many times they do. To the best of my knowledge, my cameras are not able to record audio. Have I missed a setting somewhere? The cameras are all Dahua IPC-HFW4300Ss....

Comments

  • Ben
    Ben
    Hi Eric,

    Somewhere you must have selected a local audio input to be enabled for one or more of your cameras. A Local audio input is the Mac's built-in input or a USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt one, rather than a network audio input from an IP camera. Apparently your Mac is overloaded with all the incoming video and this is triggering these messages.

    If you don't need audio, then go through each camera in the Camera Settings window, and select "None" for the audio input. Also, to reduce the load on your Mac, have a look at the Optimising performance section of the user manual.

    Hope this helps.
  • caseyd
    caseyd
    I've been getting this since my recent upgrade to 3.4.7, and had been running w/out this message for 2 years.
    My Mac's CPUs are certainly not overloaded. SS is hardwired to a gig switch which in turn goes to another POE gig switch, so I don't think I'm getting a new bottleneck ( as the network hasn't changed either )
    Is the 'local audio' pattern of error the one I should look for? I am pretty sure I have that off. ( I like the fact that local audio input can be the host mac, btw. )
  • Ben
    Ben
    I would recommend going through each camera in the Camera Settings window, clicking on the Audio tab, and making sure that the audio input for every camera is set to "None". This should stop the messages.

    The error could itself be erroneous, but on the other hand your Mac may indeed be a bit overloaded. A fast network will only contribute to your Mac's CPUs being overloaded, because a fast network is capable of delivering large amounts of data to be processed. Check Activity Monitor and have a look at what CPU usage is being reported for SecuritySpy. If it's near capacity (which would be 200% on a dual-core Mac, 400% on a quad-core Mac etc.), you might want to look at lowering some of the cameras' frame rates to ease the load.
  • caseyd
    caseyd
    Thanks Ben, you are the most impressive vendor.

    SSpy 3.4.7 is loading the CPUs at about 70%.
    This machine is a quad core Mini.
    All the Axis cameras are supposed to be sending H.264, and there isn't any re-compression going on by SSpy.
    (It's the same one as the sticky Passive camera.)

    I'll trawl through the settings again today and be sure that I've disabled audio input. The two cameras which were erroring do have microphones, however I would of expected their audio to be part of the incoming stream and not a separate thing/setting.
  • Ben
    Ben
    That is rather low CPU usage, so I would say that your Mac is not overloaded.

    The error indicates that it was generated by a local audio device (i.e. built-in, USB, Thunderbolt etc.), rather than a network audio device. But it would be a good test anyway to disable all audio from all cameras and see if this error continues.

    While you're right that with RTSP the audio comes over the same stream as the video, however SecuritySpy can control whether it is sent or not, and if you have selected "None" then SecuritySpy specifically asks the camera for the video stream without audio.

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